£ Jesus said, Make the people ( ἀνθρώπους here. contrasted with the ἄνδρες of the next clause) recline. Now there was much grass in the place. As already said, this is in harmony with the note of time conveyed in John 6:4.
The other evangelist (Mark 6:39) speaks of the people sitting down "upon the green grass"—a vivid touch this of an eyewitness; Matthew (Matthew 14:19) also speaks of the grass; and Mark and Luke add another rememberable feature which John omits.
The men, who in no great numbers probably formed, according to Eastern custom, a company by themselves). The men sat down (reclined), in number—the matter of the "number" is here put into the "accusative of closer definition" (Meyer)—about five thousand.
£Luke says, "in groups of fifty." Mark first declares that Jesus ordered them to sit down ( συμπόσια συμπόσια) in parties, and describes the result as having the appearance of garden beds ( πρασιαί πρασιαί), of fifty or of a hundred each.
The πρασιά is area, forus (Gartenbett; Homer, "Od.," 7.127; 24.247). " πρασιαί," says Theophylact, "are the different divisions in gardens, in which different herbs are often planted." The image of the garden plots, with different divisions between them, forced itself on the eyewitness.